For decades, IBM has been trusted by the world's leading telcos to help lead them through transformation. And today is no different—83% of the world’s telcos are IBM clients, and the industry is facing another point of incredible change. 

While emerging technologies like 5G and edge present enormous opportunities to drive new value, telcos are racing to transform their networks into hybrid cloud platforms that can support growing volumes of complex data. And they’re once again placing their trust in IBM.

Today, we signed a new digital transformation agreement with Vodafone Portugal. This builds on other regional momentum we’ve recently announced with Telecom Egypt and Telefonica to transform their enterprise offerings to take advantage of hybrid cloud, as well as our work with Bouygues Telecom to drive 5G innovation. 

What’s so important about this progress is that not only do these collaborations underscore the deep trust leading telcos are continuing to place in IBM, but it also comes at a crucial point in time for telcos across the EMEA region. And it’s why in just several short weeks since we started the new year, we’re seeing some incredible momentum across this region.

According to a recent IBV survey of European telco executives, half (50%) said they thought that operators must become secure clouds infused with AI and automation. However, just 37% said their organization had deployed AI to automate decisions related to infrastructure and network functions. This is where IBM continues to bridge a crucial technological gap in helping these organizations embrace hybrid cloud strategies to modernize their offerings and drive greater efficiencies and value. 

With Vodafone, we’re expanding our work together into Portugal to launch Vodafone Virtual Private Cloud, a new private cloud offering for Portuguese enterprise customers. Vodafone Virtual Private Cloud will provide customers the scalability, efficiency and security they need to speed their digital transformation. Customers can use a range of automation and monitoring capabilities as well as IBM managed services to help them manage, optimize and update their virtual infrastructure and run their business more efficiently. This implementation adds to IBM’s ongoing $550M cloud and networking services agreement with Vodafone in Europe. 

Additionally, last week we announced we’re working with Telecom Egypt to help them adopt an open, hybrid cloud strategy to gain more flexible deployment options and drive innovation to meet the evolving needs of customers. Telecom Egypt will adopt IBM Cloud Pak for Automation to infuse AI into its workflows in order to scale automation projects more quickly, across any cloud or on-premises environment. Ultimately, this means better customer experiences and quality of service.

Underpinning all of this progress is our investment in the IBM Cloud for Telecommunications, a secure and open, hybrid cloud environment with an ecosystem of partners that addresses the unique challenges telcos face as 5G and edge transform the industry.  We are delighted as we add new ecosystem partners every week - now well over 40 since the announcement.

Our clients are clearly telling us, as the convergence of 5G and edge continues to spark innovation and opportunity, they are embracing open hybrid cloud platforms to propel their businesses forward. And this is where we continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s leading telcos to fuel the next era of their evolution and growth.

Steve Canepa
IBM’s Global GM & Managing Director, Communications Sector